NBRI TO RESTART GENOME SEQUENCING OF COVID SAMPLES

LUCKNOW: Keeping in view the rising number of new daily Covid cases in Uttar Pradesh, the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) has decided to restart genome sequencing of the samples.

Dr SK Barik, director, NBRI said, “Covid cases are rising, so it has been decided to start genome sequencing once again. We had earlier done genome sequencing for two batches of covid samples.”

Samples for genome sequencing from Uttar Pradesh were being sent to New Delhi to avoid wastage of testing kits. Health officials had said this was being done as the kits conducted test for 96 samples in one go. Even if 10 samples were tested, the kit for 96 would have to be used. Hence it was a waste earlier, since the number of new cases was less. The NBRI lab has the INSACOG lab that conducts genome sequencing. Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium or INSACOG is a multi-laboratory, multi-agency, pan-India network to monitor genomic variations in SARS-CoV-2 .